By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO — Six Reform Jewish congregations throughout San Diego County were targeted on Tuesday, Jan. 2, with false bomb threats, according to Bill Ganley, the Secure Community Network’s security director at the Jewish Federation of San Diego.
The local congregations were among 91 California congregations that received an email at 6:59 a.m. on Tuesday, Ganley said. Most received only one email, but there were 20 instances when a congregation received more than one hoax warning that “well hidden” explosives were set to go off. Some congregations were temporarily evacuated and others were already closed.
The affected congregations in San Diego County were Temple Adat Shalom in Poway, Congregation Beth Israel in San Diego, Temple Emanu-El in San Diego, Congregation Etz Chaim in Ramona, Congregation Etz Rimon in Carlsbad, and Temple Solel in Encinitas.
Adat Shalom, Beth Israel, Emanu-El, and Solel have their own buildings, whereas Etz Chaim and Etz Rimon meet respectively in people’s homes and in a rented space at a church.
Ganley said it was not immediately determined if all the bomb threats in California were aimed exclusively at Reform congregations as they were in San Diego County, or whether the whole panoply of Jewish movements, including Conservative, Orthodox, Chasidic, Reconstructionist, Humanitarian and Jewish Renewal, also were included.
He said the Federal Bureau of Investigation is trying to determine who the perpetrator or perpetrators were, with one obvious avenue of investigation being the Internet address of the email sender.
Ganley said that the bomb threats were a continuation of a pattern that saw 700 synagogues throughout the country receive threats between December 13th and December 31st.
Although so far the bomb threats have been hoaxes, Ganley recommended that security personnel at synagogues and other Jewish institutions go through their premises every morning before a service or function to determine whether any suspicious packages have been planted. If so, Ganley said, police should be called in with bomb-sniffing dogs.
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Donald H. Harrison is publisher and editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via sdheritage@cox.net